Ad Analysis: LifeBuoy Soap
The ad I chose is an advertisement from 1925 of Lifebuoy Health soap. It was in a magazine called Ladies Home Journal. The ad had a headline “Why America Wins Olympics,” displaying the kind of displaying advertising, which is advertising in print media that usually consists of illustrations or images and text that can occupy a small section of a page, a full page, or multiple pages (Media Perspectives).
Analyzing the ad-article, the statements are referring how kids are training are being recreational and can be the future of world athletes. In order for children to be trained they need to stay healthy and hygienic, by buying Lifebuoy Soap. It was concluded that it was stated by a “Health Doctor,” noting the cost (10 cents) and location of the company (Lever Brothers Co, Cambridge, Massachusetts).
This ad was obviously set possibly after the 1924 Paris Olympics and the United States had the most gold medals (45) and total metals (99). (Olympics.com) This is indicating of product placement using a current event and propaganda. The ad article is also found in a women’s demographic magazine. So the consumers who read this are particularity women with children. This will encourage the women reading the advertorial will buy the soap. To further the ad to be complying for female consumers, there is a drawn mural of a mother and son “a lifebuoy family,” that this soap is for family.
With Life Buoy Soap being a health and beauty product, the company is not distributed in the United States anymore but it lasted till the 1960s. The comparison ad I am showing is a television commercial advertisement for Lifebuoy soap. The commercial has a narrator sounding like the voice of the old introductions of the “Twilight Zone.” While he’s narrating about the Lifebuoy soap, it shows a husband and wife and as he’s reading the morning newspaper, the wife is aroused to the husband’s scent, referring it to be the Lifebuoy soap he applied before breakfast. There is one particular phrase that the narrator speaks and its “drives wives wicked.” The message is if men buy this soap women will be attracted to you.
They also show a short glimpse of the soap and it is completely different from the 1925 article ad. The original brand was a red box with a red soap. This one shares a vintage 1950s look and due to be a white soap, adding it is a heavy scented mint soap. The 1925 soap is advertise as a “health soap,” a product for healthy skin and considering it for children. Comparing it to the 50s television ad, its using it as market for adult males and buying it will boost sex appeal and women love mint scented soap.
So the then and now with the correlation of branding this soap company has dramatically change its target audience in order to increase profit and product demographic. The commercial ad is about thirty years later and the company dramatically utilize different techniques to configure the soap product to the current culture. The culture has switch from soap design, demographic and in technology using a television ad when before they were purchasing placement in magazines and other print media. This type ad is very similar for example those axe body spray commercials in the 2000s where women are allured to the fragrance, disposing the 1920 attitude to have healthy skin.
Pavilk, John, McIntosh Shawn “Converging Media, A New Introduction to Mass Communication.” Oxford University Press Ch. 10 Media Perspectives (pg.276–281)
